Sony A1 + 200-600 First impressions (long)

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ronnie said:
its amazing to read how many Nikon users have moved to Sony, it makes you think that Nikon is falling behind the other brands and the future does not look much better. Case in point is the delay in the 200-600 Z Lens, this has been going on for years now and every announcement, it gets push back further.

In one of the earlier responses "Shooting BIF with one of the slower focusing AF-S lenses on a body that was never intended/designed for high speed action", what other choice do Nikon users have? either the Nikkor 200-500 or the Sigma 100-600mm, both are super slow.
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It's amazing how many people are talking about the missing 200-600 and ignoring the rave reviews of the 800PF, 400 f4.5, 100-400, and the awards raked in by the 400 2.8 TC. Can't see the forest for the trees? No matter how amazing it might be when it arrives the 200-600 isn't going to solve anyone's BIF shooting problems if it's got a Z6/7 hung on it. For shooting BIF on a budget Sony has exactly one lens, the 200-600(ok and the 100-400 if you can live with 400mm). They don't offer ANY reasonably priced prime lenses and none at any price in 300mm or 500mm.

The point of the prior comment was that you combined a relatively slow lens on a non-action body. That lens paired with a D500/D850/D5 is plenty fast. Not the fastest but gets the job done in the proper hands. The choice for Nikon users wanting to shoot BIF prior to the Z9 was to be content with a DSLR body on any of the excellent lenses available until Nikon came out with the appropriate MILC body. Plenty of us did just that. On the other hand plenty of people on this forum and elsewhere making poor choices and blaming Nikon. If you couldn't wait to switch to MILC then you did what you should have(finally) by going with equipment that fit your needs.

Nikon isn't going anywhere. They're winning awards hand over fist with their new MILC gear. Since release of the Z9 the only area that Nikon is behind with AF technology is BIF tracking. That's a small segment of the market. On this forum there is a disproportionate percentage of BIF shooters relative to the market as a whole. So there's a corresponding disproportionate amount of gloom and doom discussion. It will be interesting to see where we are a year from now.

P.S. Note my comments in previous post. I shoot and love the A1/200-600. My favorite camera ever. But Nikon still offers more of what I need/want as a SYSTEM.
 
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Syllog said:
Could you elaborate on the problems DXO solved for you please Venkatesh?
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Not to speak for him but from my own experience DxO PL is the best RAW conversion software IF you're shooting a camera/lens combination that they have profiled. Which they have for the A1/200-600mm. The profiling optimizes noise reduction for the specific camera sensor, allows very accurate geometry/distortion corrections, and performs "capture" sharpening specific to the camera/lens.

NR is best performed as early in post processing as possible. As I understand it their "Deep Prime" noise reduction works on the original RAW file prior to the bayer conversion. That's about as far upstream as you can push it. And the geometry/sharpening corrections make a huge difference in initial apparent sharpness of the RAW image vs images for which there is no profile in the system. It's really very good. Does it really matter? I suppose it depends on how picky we are and/or how the final image will be used. It is a noticeable difference but I only run it on really high ISO images or on anything that I plan on printing large.
 
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